In days of yore, they tell me, an American election Was to find the nation’s leaders by some process of selection; But it’s pretty clear by now that that’s the secondary answer – It’s a pick-me-up for Pollsters and an Analysts’ bonanza !

There’s Yankelovich and Skelly doing Time or on the telly Crawling out from every profitable stone; And from Jacksonville to Paris there’s a Gallup or a Harris, Dissecting every segment to the bone ! And it’s all so scientific (and the profits so terrific), That the candidates have even got their own !

But the self-respecting voter who’s not in some sample quota, Feels he’s stigmatised and subject to a sleight; So the only fair solution is to change the Constitution, And guarantee we’re sampled as a basic human right !

( from ‘The Making of a President’)

About Ralph Windle

Ralph Windle is a poet, writer and social commentator. He created the fictional character Bertie Ramsbottom who, through the pages of the Financial Times of London, the Harvard Business Review, books, radio, live performance and other media, helped bring poetry and its language into corporate boardrooms and offices on both sides of the Atlantic and world - wide. His ‘The Poetry of Business Life’ (Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, USA) was the first international anthology of business verse and poets (1994).

Based near Oxford, England, he is a former corporate CEO and Fellow of Templeton College, Oxford. In 2000, he founded the Creative Value Network to encourage better creative inter-action and ideas exchange between the arts, science and educational communities.